Kathmandu Contemporary Art Center and Siddhartha Gallery will host a lecture by U.S. artists and professors Io Palmer and Adam Davis.

Long standing friends, Palmer and Davis have discussed collaborating artistically for over a decade and have traveled to Nepal to realize that dream. While in residence at KCAC they have merged their artistic practices for the first time to create a project informed by their experiences in Nepal. During their talk they will both speak about their individual careers as well as describe their collaboration in Patan.

Io Palmer:Through depictions of cleaning products, laborers' garments, and various other industrial and domestic forms, Io Palmer's artworks explore complex issues surrounding class and societal excess within capitalist modes of production. Trained originally as a ceramicist, Palmer uses a variety of processes and materials including fabric, wood and sound.

Palmer has been featured in several national and international exhibitions including the Dak’Art, 11ème Biennale de l’Art Africain Contemporain, Dakar, Senegal; The Schomburg Center, New York City, NY and Singular Masses, Hyde Gallery, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN. Io recently received an Idaho Commission on the Arts Grant, US (2013).She holds a BFA from the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia , PA, US and an MFA from the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ, US. Io is currently associate professor at Washington State University, Pullman, WA, US.

Adam DavisAdam Davis is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice encompasses but is not limited to sculpture, video, and photography. Through formal and conceptual investigations into the nature of relationships, he creates works that serve as a kind of scaffolding with which to display the intricacies of access, love, desire and loss. The finished works often combine humor with empathy, detaching viewers from their existent cosmologies and directing them towards unfamiliar landscapes.Davis’ work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions. In addition, he has participated in Artist-In-Residence programs both nationally and internationally, curated the 65th Scripps Ceramic annual, and has had his work published in three books: We Can’t Wait For Better Times: Five Years Of Art Projects At Homesession, Barcelona by Olivier Collet, & Jerome Lefaure, Confrontational Clay by Judith Schwartz and Queer Retrosexualities: The Politics of Reparative Return by Nishant Shahani.Davis received his BS from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1995, and his MFA in 1999 from The University of Arizona. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California, where in addition to his professional studio practice he is an Associate Professor of Art at Scripps College.

Happening The Balam Project by the Italian artist Silvia Capiluppi.

The Balam Project - when Penelope decided to leave- she furrows the waters and looks for the rainbow. Her first sentence: "the Earth must be washed with clean water"

This phrase borne from the deep silence is a whisper from the soul. It is a sentence that contains other meanings, as in a game of Chinese boxes. Thanks to the power, guarded in words, the word Earth contains inside it, the word Art and then "art must be washed with clean water" and also "Be clean Water", " Art be Water" ... "Earth Be".

And if then you overturn the plans, the letter from W becomes M and the word Water becomes Mater - Mother.

"The Earth must be washed with clean Mater"

"Art must be washed with clean Mater"

"Art Be Mater"

The Earth is borne from Water; many myths of Creation speak of this. The Earth is borne from water; for life to go on - clean water is the very essence of life itself. We must take care of Earth, like a loving Mother with the tool of our choice, which is Art. And then the Earth is Water, and the Art is Mother at the same time that the Earth is our Mother and the Art is Water.

The photography exhibited is the first test print of the Balam Project, a project in which 21 self-portraits were made in August of 2013 in Los - a Greek island - to document the voluntary input and output from a zoomorphic rock that bears striking resemblance to the head of a Jaguar or Balam in ancient Mayan language. In old Maya Books of Chilam, Balam is described thus: "When the mouth of the Balam the Jaguar opens, the wolf will run. Xibalba will spill on the earth and the Feathered Serpent will fall down”

The photography documents a moment of creative time. The words: “the Earth must be washed with clean water,” is hand embroidered onto a photograph with a white wire- this color represents the element of water in Tibetan tradition - and a red wire. Needle and wire are used in homage to popular and mythological traditions; to mend the things that were broken; to draw history by using red wire that is like a root immersed in water which gives force and energy to the cycle of life.

The 21 photographs of Balam Project have been embroidered in Kathmandu during the month of November 2013. Symbols from Tibetan Buddhism have been painstakingly embroidered by Mumtaj Hussain from Nepal onto the photographs thus transforming the original works into collaborative pieces. Using both hand and machine embroidery each work is unique. These works will be further embellished with hand-embroidery in different languages of the host countries that the work will travel to.

The Balam Project has been envisioned as a nomad art project for protection and healing. It is the time of return. It is the time of Feathered Serpent; the time of Rainbow Serpent. It is the time of the Rainbow -a symbol of hope that is borne from Water. We become messengers of Rainbow; we become carriers of Rainbow. Be Indalo

The Himalayas are the largest reservoirs of water on the planet and it is in danger. The happening will showcase 21 photographs of the Balam Project, which will be hung like prayer flags along with a performance dedicated to Water.